I’m having a hard time picking a niche for my marketing plan so I thought writing down my thought process could help me figure this out. So far, I’ve discovered 10 niches that have less than 1,000 results in the Women’s Novelty T-shirt category on Amazon. I choose that category because I noticed that there are far fewer t-shirt designs for women than there are for men. I also feel much more comfortable marketing for that group. Here is an overview of the 10 niches and total number of results for each niche:
Niche #1 – Hobby Niche – 112
Niche #2 – Hobby Niche – 113
Niche #3 – Sports Niche – 117
Niche #4 – Activity Niche – 162
Niche #5 – Hobby Niche – 184
Niche #6 – Sports Niche – 198
Niche #7 – Sports Niche – 263
Niche #8 – Sports Niche – 296
Niche #9 – Sports Niche – 299
Niche #10 – Sports Niche – 668
Even though I love Niche #10, I think we can eliminate that one right off the bat. It has too many results and the boost in sales might be due to the Summer Olympics. Niches #7, 8 & 9 can also be eliminated since their results are also quite high. That leaves us with 6 niches. Here are the pros and cons for each niche started with #6 and working our way down.
Niche #6 – Sports Niche
This niche isn’t an Olympic sport or even a sport that is on TV. It’s pretty much a game that people play when they are camping or when they have a family reunion. Apparently, it gets quite competitive among family members. It seems like almost all the shirts on the front page have multiple reviews and are ranked well. The 198 results are a little high but are under 200 so I’m fine with it. I like how there are many different slogans and catch phrases for this niche. Looking at Facebook groups, there aren’t many big groups available. The biggest one I found only has 2,000 members. However, there are some groups for small towns with 28-100 members so there is an interest in this sport/hobby. I can’t find much interest in it on Instagram so, even though I love this nice, maybe it isn’t the best niche for my marketing plan.
Niche #5 – Hobby Niche
I really love this niche. I’m a little bias since I went to college to major in this niche and I still participate once in a while. It has quite a bit of repetitive shirt designs which I love because I can be creative and stand out. The 184 results are on the higher end but under 200 which is still great. There are a ton of Facebook and Instagram pages for this hobby and they have thousands of followers. I think this would be a good niche to pick. The only downsides are that I’m unsure how to create a good theme for an Instagram page. There aren’t a lot of mockups that have to do with this niche. I might be able to make my own mockups though by using Placeit.net and then change the background to something related to the niche. Also, this niche tends to favor men so I’m not exactly sure how I’ll market it to women. Last year, I uploaded a design in this niche that was catered to women and it’s my best selling shirt so the demand is definitely there if I can figure it out. This niche is definitely on my short-list.
Niche #4 – Activity Niche
I’m not really liking this niche. There aren’t many designs for this niche which is great, however, most of the 162 results have nothing to do with this niche. The ones that are about this niche are negative. “Real People Don’t Do This Niche” or “God Hates This Niche” Things like that. I’m not sure why the shirts are so negative because people on Reddit and other message boards seem to love this niche. There’s even a popular TV show based on this niche. The bad stuff about this niche could also be turned into a positive. Since there are so many negative shirts, any positive shirts might stand out and sell well. I did see one positive shirt – “Niche Queen” and it has sold in the past but doesn’t seem to be selling regularly. Maybe if it has some better marketing and more colors catered to women (it was only offered on black and navy blue) it might sell better. There are a lot of Facebook pages with lots of members related to this niche and I could envision an Instagram page with quotes and images from this niche. However, I think since this one has so many unknowns, I’m going to shelve it for now. I might take on this niche once I get to tier 1K or higher but for now, I want to focus on niches that have proven they can sell.
Niche #3 – Sports Niche
This is a popular sports and I was surprised there weren’t many results. Under 150 results is amazing! I don’t think this is an Olympic sport but I could be wrong about that. It has been featured in a variety of movies and TV shows. People get really into it and it can get competitive. Almost every shirt on the front page of this niche has sold at least once. There are a lot of Facebook and Instagram pages with lots of members so I don’t think I’ll have any trouble marketing on those platforms. I really think this niche could be a contender. Edit: I just re-did the search and it came up with 201 results which is still good.
Niche #2 – Hobby Niche
Although I think of women when I think of this niche, almost all of the results were catered to men. I don’t think I saw a single shirt that was designed for a woman. For example, let’s say the hobby is knitting. Most people think that is a woman’s hobby but when you search for it, you only find shirts that say, “Knitting Dad” or a silhouette of a man knitting and you don’t find anything related to a woman knitting. That is what this niche is like. It is very strange to me. This could be a good thing though. I could stand out from the crowd with shirts that say, “Niche Mom” or “Niche like a woman” and so forth. There are quite a few Facebook and Instagram groups in this niche with a lot of followers. I think this could be a very good niche to go into, especially if I cater specifically to women.
Niche #1 – Hobby Niche
This is another niche that I don’t like. I think it’s kind of a gross niche. Think insect collecting. Makes me squirm just thinking about it. However, it has a low number of results and, like Niche #2, there aren’t many designs geared towards women. That’s probably because this is a male dominated niche. Guys love this niche. However, I know some women who love this niche too. I think shirts in this niche that are geared towards women could do very well. There are many Facebook and Instagram pages for this niche so I would have a problem marketing this niche. However, I really don’t like the niche itself so I’m going to shelve this niche for now and come back to it once I tier up to 1K or higher.
The Short List
Now that I’ve narrowed it down even more. My top 3 choices are:
Niche #2 – Hobby Niche
Niche #3 – Sports Niche
Niche #5 – Hobby Niche
My favorite niche is Niche #5. I think the best performing niche would be Niche #2. I think the best niche for Instagram marketing is Niche #3. As you can see, I’m having a hard time choosing.
If I go with Niche #5, I’m already familiar with it and I already have a design in the niche that is doing well so I know shirts sell in this niche. I’m just having a hard time figuring out how to create an Instagram page for it though. Maybe I’ll run over to Placeit.net real quick and do some mockups to see what they would look like. I’ll be right back…I think I can make this niche work. I quickly created a design for this niche and tried out some mockups and they looked pretty good. There weren’t very many mockups that would work for this niche but I can also make mockups using AI. I’ve never done that before but I’m willing to try it out.
If I go with Niche #3, it will be more competitive but that might be a good thing. I can totally see an Instagram page for it with people playing the sport while wearing my shirts. I’m not a big fan of this sport though so making the shirts might get repetitive and boring.
If I go with Niche #2, I can see women loving these shirts. There’s a lot of opportunity there, especially since most of the shirts available are only for men. I think I could have some fun making designs for this niche. I’m not the biggest fan of the niche but I think there’s lots of different phrases and quotes I could base my designs around. Like Niche #3, it might get a bit boring and repetitive.
And The Winner Is…
Niche #5. I have experience in this science based niche and I’m excited about it. There’s a lot of different designs and quotes in this niche that I could tap into and I think I can make a nice Instagram page for this niche to promote my shirts. I can also expand into related niches. The only issue I have with this niche is that the mockups might be a bit difficult to design but I think I can pull it off.
As for the other two niches on this list, I’m not done with them yet. I will still dive into them at some point but, for now, I’m just going to focus on Niche #5. I’ll work on the next part of my marketing plan in August which is to create a brand name and to come up with 10 phrases, quotes and ideas for designs.